


Det[god]ails

by Amand_r



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-02
Updated: 2011-04-02
Packaged: 2017-10-17 11:31:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amand_r/pseuds/Amand_r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You have got yourself the Torchwood tramp stamp."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Det[god]ails

**Author's Note:**

> I blame tiki_92090, who wondered just how the Torchwood logo gets on everything, and I flippantly said, "Oh, Ianto does that."

Ianto had been running on about three hours of sleep, and so when he had walked into himself in the Hub, he wasn't as surprised as, in retrospect, he should have been.

His other self was pretty much him, except that instead of the same rumpled suit that Ianto hadn't had a chance to change in forty-eight hours, he was wearing denims and a t shirt for a band that Ianto secretly liked but didn't dare mention to anyone. And his other self, while looking about his age, was a little thinner, a little grayer.

And he was decaling the Torchwood logo on one of the clear Plexiglas walls of the old conference room. His brow was drawn in concentration, and he ran the plastic comb over the vinyl of the decal with quick _zwip_ sounds. A post carrier bag was slung across one shoulder, and Ianto could see decal sheets and rolls of larger labels sticking haphazardly from it.

He felt for his gun, and then realised that it was back at his desk. He had to remember to stay armed, even in the Hub (or Christ, _especially_ in the Hub), no matter what Gwen said to Mickey about disarming when they were in house. He set the files he was carrying on the closest surface, and instead looked about for anything that could be used as a weapon.

The closest thing was an umbrella. It would have to do, because he'd just kicked a rubbish bin, and the metal clanged loudly.

"Oh hullo," the other Ianto, who Ianto had told himself to think of as Ianto II, said, spinning and making a cringing face. "This is inconvenient." He stared off into space as if trying to remember something before shaking his head. "Don't shoot…" He stared at Ianto's hands. "The umbrella?"

Ianto glanced down. "Uh. Yeah." Now that he thought about it more, it hadn't been the best choice there. For heaven's sake there was a cricket bat, inexplicably under Mickey's station, three feet from him. It might as well have been on the other side of the Hub, as Ianto II raised an eyebrow at him and pointed to the bat.

"That," the other man said, "was poorly thought out." He cocked his head. "But you're probably running on five hours of sleep."

"Three," he answered before raising the umbrella as menacingly as he could. If push came to shove, he could probably crack his impostor a good one, or stab him with the pointy tip. At least once. Perhaps once would be enough.

Ianto II nodded. "I remember being tired. Very tired. I was drinking so much coffee that I was starting the day with a volley of antacids. Are you doing that yet?"

Ianto lowered the umbrella minutely. "I just started that this morning." Myfanwy screeched in her hole and launched herself out into the air, circling a few times before settling on one of the high catwalks they let her use to stretch her legs. Ianto watched her with interest, cursing himself for being distracted. He had harboured hope that if the man in front of him was a threat, then she'd somehow sense it. Or maybe he was--

"I'm you," Ianto II said, running a hand though his hair and digging through his bag. Ianto rapped the umbrella against the edge of the closest surface. Ianto II looked up alarmedly. "Albeit you're wound a little more tightly than I am," he added.

"Hands out of the bag," he said to Ianto II. "If you're me, then tell me something only I would know," he said, waving the umbrella.

Ianto II hitched his bag higher up his shoulder and smiled. "Jack can perform auto-fellatio."

Ianto waved the umbrella again, stabbing a bit with the tip. "Not convincing. Also, patently false."

"But humourous." Ianto II shrugged. "There's a collection of knickers in the lower levels that you—"

"Fine." Ianto lowered the umbrella. "Are you me, from the future?"

Ianto II smiled and pulled another decal from the bag on his shoulder. This one was just the straightforward "Torchwood" in its usual script. He wandered down the stairs, over to Gwen's monitor and centered the paper on the back of it before peeling the backing and slapping the decal on quickly. "Yes," he answered over his shoulder. "Give me a hand, will you?"

Ianto set down the umbrella and joined his future self at Gwen's desk. Ianto II nodded his head towards the bag hanging on his shoulder. "In the bag, get the comb."

The bag was full of decals and labels, a few travel mugs and boxes of pens, all blazoned with the Torchwood logo. Ianto was both surprised and not—he'd never ordered Torchwood pens, but they always seemed to turn up in the supply cabinet anyway. He wanted to dig further into the pouch, but Ianto II cleared his throat and he plucked the flat white plastic spatula looking device that he'd seen auto detailers use out of the depths of the bag and dropped it into, well, his hand.

Ianto II scraped for what felt like five minutes, meticulous and exacting, then handed Ianto the comb, and almost painstakingly pulled the sheet from the back of the monitor, leaving behind The Torchwood letters. Fingers ran over the raised logo to ensure a proper seal.

"How long do you think it will take her to notice?" Ianto II asked with a wry grin, holding out his hand again. "I'm thinking never."

He returned the decal comb and watched the other man slide it into his back pocket. "Why are you doing this?"

"Hooliganism," Ianto II confirmed. "In a manner of speaking that I cannot elaborate upon at this time." He paused. "Or ever." He shrugged. "It's…it will be important in the future."

Ianto sat on the edge of the sofa and watched his future self stuff the last of the discarded papers into his bag. "Like the Bad Wolf thing," Ianto said decidedly.

Ianto II had the gall to look offended. "I should say not. That was something completely different," he scoffed. "Spray paint. I use _much_ better materials."

"So," Ianto began, and then stopped. "You do all this…" He waved a hand at the Hub. Ianto II wiped his hands on his denims and made a disgusted noise at the general disarray of Gwen's desk. He shuffled a few papers, then seemed to think better of it, and instead pulled something from his bag and hid it under a folder. It looked like a bag of Twiglets.

"Wait," Ianto said. "The basketball—" He glanced up at the Torchwood logo on the backboard of the basketball hoop. For a second he pondered the logistics of hanging up there.

Ianto II didn't look up. "Yup." He'd finished with all of his decaling apparently and was instead looking about, probably to make sure that he hadn't dropped anything. "Also, the framing on the SUV."

Ianto had long wondered why Jack had felt the need to drive about with TORCHWOOD emblazoned on the rollbar of the SUV, and had decided that he was taking a page from the Doctor—people ignored the extraordinary, which was true. It didn't stop him from thinking that putting the name of the secret organisation on the vehicle and then parking it in the garage under the Millennium Centre was helping to keep their location secret. It almost negated the function of having a Tourist Centre as a front.

A thought occurred to him. "Am I," Ianto paused, trying to figure out what to ask. "Is this what happens to me?"

Ianto II smiled and sipped from the coffee mug on Ianto's desk. "Wow, you're still on that blend. And no, it isn't."

Ianto crossed his arms.

Ianto II smiled disarmingly. He shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched forward a bit. "This isn't you. Well, I am, I quite am, but not you in a sense. In all senses." He sighed. "I'm in the Hub, too. Probably having it off with Jack right now." His eyes became distant again.

Jack was there. In the future. That was heartening. There were occasional moments in which Ianto wondered when Jack was going to leave them. He especially thought it when he couldn't get Jack the tech he wanted, or they accidentally came across one of Owen's piss-poor autopsy reports with obscene things scribbled in the margins.

"Oh," was all he said.

Ianto II shoved off from the desk and set his bag down on the coffee table, sitting at the other end of the sofa. "I really shouldn’t tell you anything else," he said softly. "We've already damaged the timeline anyway." He gave Ianto the once over and wiggled his eyebrows, altogether like someone else. "Jack has this story about one time when he shagged himself in the back of a Pret in Bristol. Mind you, I think he makes up these things to encourage proclivities."

"I'm a lot more cavalier in the future," Ianto observed.

Ianto II nodded. "It's the suits." He frowned. "And your hair gel."

Ianto reached up to run a hand through his hair, but his future self caught it and leaned in, his face dangerously close. If he was indeed _not_ future-Ianto and was instead some sort of nostrovite or other shapeshifting beastie (one bent on Torchwood graffiti, at that), then Ianto was in trouble. But Jack had taken in Myfanwy as a guard dog, and so far she'd done an admirable job in the past, and she didn't seemed to be alarmed by the two of them on the sofa, so close that they could have done a Marx Brothers routine.

Ianto II grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his face closer then, kissing him harshly, and Ianto wondered if this was one of those kinds of experiences that, if he got a chance to live through it, he could tell to Jack and win a smug point. Perhaps he needed a belt to notch up. Ianto II's mouth tasted like coffee and something else, something he knew he should recognise but, possibly because he was distracted, he couldn't put a finger on.

Hands, hands were everywhere, on his face, then the next second his neck, then his chest or his waistband, and wondered if this was what he was like to Jack, or Lisa.

He got as far as deciding to observe his own technique for personal concrit later when Ianto II trailed his lips down his throat and bit his Adam's apple. Somewhere in the last five seconds, his tie had loosened.

"You still blush," his future self told him when he unfastened Ianto's trousers to dig into his boxers and fist his cock. "I'm adorable."

Ianto found the other man's flies and tried to work his fingers as deftly as possible. Ianto II wasn't wearing underwear, and that was a bit of a surprise. Even more surprising was that he let Ianto push him back onto the sofa and lay atop him, grasping their erections in his hand. Ianto II used both of his hands to cup Ianto's arse and pushed a bit, groaning when Ianto's grip tightened and he thrust a few times. His T-shirt rode up, showing a thinner frame, a scarred chest that Ianto snapped a picture of with his eyes, memorising. His future self would tell him nothing, nothing, but he could figure things out on his own: thick red scar vertically down the sternum, that was from, that was from…

No time to analyze. Ianto II had his mouth again, and he screwed his eyes shut because his older self didn't, kissed with his eyes open, like he wanted to see himself, and that wasn't something that Ianto could do. Obviously, not yet.

It seemed like it went on forever, though it couldn't have been long, not long to thrust and rut and slap thighs together on the sofa, Ianto II's fingers in his ass, his mouth sucking on Ianto's free fingers when he wasn't trying to nip or bite at Ianto's ears. His breath was hot and smelled still like something, still, something.

And then Ianto came all over his future self, and somewhere in the back of his head he noted the joke of the past screwing the future, coming all over the future, marking the future and ha ha, wasn't that funny. He pumped Ianto II a few more times and he exploded all over himself and Ianto's hand and Ianto's come, and then it was an even funnier, if not layered, joke.

They were sweaty and panting and when Ianto set his head on his future chest for a split second he heard the rapid fire _thunkthunkathunkthunka_ of his heart, what his own heart had to be doing right at that moment, and it seemed as if everything was going to be fine. He levered himself up, smiling at Ianto II a little sheepishly, as if he had just masturbated in front of a mirror, or a slightly more disapproving version of himself, but the other man laughed.

"That was, as Jack would say, hot."

Ianto was about to wipe his hands on the sofa when he stopped and wondered just how many times people had done just that in the past. He certainly had. He needed to steam clean the thing. "Yeah," he agreed. He looked about for a rag and was just about to use an old blanket from the back of the sofa when his future self groaned and dug about in his denims.

"Oh," Ianto II said, pulling a small canister out of his pocket. "Look at this," he said casually, but when Ianto glanced at it, he was hit with a puff of aerosolised mist. He coughed and blinked.

"What the hell?"

Ianto II exhaled. "Sorry, can't have you knowing about this."

Ianto blinked a few times and sat back on the sofa. "Was that Retcon?"

Ianto II smiled. "Mickey made some changes. I am sorry. It would be so much easier if you knew about this going in, but I didn't remember, so…" He waved a hand. "Logic puzzles and all that." When Ianto swatted at his face as he fell backwards, Ianto II snorted. "You can't tell me that you didn't see this coming."

The last thing Ianto saw as he closed his eyes was his future self, brushing his hand along Ianto's face and smiling. "Don't worry. I'll tidy up. Get a haircut, though, yeah?"

***

Ianto sighed into the pillow of Jack's spare camp bed while its owner straddled his arse and massaged his shoulder. It was still in the massage stage (he'd even said yes, when Jack had offered, eyes wide and innocent, like there was ever a ruse that he would fall for ever again from Jack), and he was content to let it go on as long as possible before it turned into something much more physically strenuous. Jack would wake him up if he fell asleep; he was insistent about sex like that.

"You've been spending too much time at the Hub," Jack said, bending over to remark casually into Ianto's ear, his fingers playing at the small of his back, right above his arse. "You have got yourself the Torchwood tramp stamp."

"The what?" Ianto asked, looking back.

Jack traced a T on his spine. "Yeah right here." He pressed the area with his thumbs. "Not the tattoo I would have chosen for you."

Ianto squirmed and tried to look over his shoulder at the place Jack was marking with his fingers. "You're taking the piss."

Jack levered Ianto up, and turned him to the side so that he could look over his shoulder at the mirror hanging from the inside of the open door of Jack's standing wardrobe. Sure enough, right at the base of his spine, above his arse, there was the unmistakable T of the Torchwood logo.

"Oh."

Jack rested his cheek on his shoulder and the two of them stared into the mirror. "I'm assuming you got it last night, since I can safely say that you didn't have this twenty-four hours ago. Whatever were you doing while Gwen and I were in Splott?"

Ianto reached back and touched his skin, fingers running over the tattoo. He couldn't feel it, feel anything amiss. "I…I don't know. I catalogued those remaining things from the Bay, and then I signed off on our pay raises, and then I…I fell asleep." He turned away from the mirror and looked Jack squarely in the eye. "On the sofa."

Jack smirked again, one hand reaching around to Ianto's back, the other running over his chest. "Well, I think it's sexy. I might have gone with something else, like a little coffee mug, or something, but—"

Ianto batted his hands away and fell sideways back onto the bed, burying his face into the pillow. "It's not funny," he mumbled. "Something marked me while I was in the Hub. With _that_." He raised his head up. "How does that logo get everywhere anyway?"

"I wouldn't worry," Jack snorted. "It's not permanent. They're in vegetable ink." He smiled. "I wake up with one at least three or four times a year. Have ever since I started to live here."

Ianto settled back into the pillow. "Oh." And then, "Still."

Jack 's hand ran along his spine, following his fingers with his tongue. "I think it's a ghost," Jack suggested. "A sexy ghost with a stamper pad and excellent taste. And a funny sense of humour."

Ianto smiled into the cotton. "Your imagination is out of control sometimes." He had to admit that as far as ideas went, it wasn't completely inane. "I take it your lack of concern means that this is one of those things that you have filed under harmless?"

There was a snuffle of warm breath over the small of his back, right where the tattoo should have been, and then a long lathe of tongue that trailed down to his arse. Jack was obviously not worried. He confirmed verbally anyway. "Think of it as a mystery that will probably be solved on its own. Like reading the book all the way through instead of skipping to the last few pages."

That was pointed. "Look, I have little time, and so I don't want to invest myself in—oh." Jack's hands told him that they didn't really care about Ianto's reading habits.

Ianto wondered once more about the tattoo and if Gwen ever found herself with one, then decided that if she had, he would have heard about it. So, just him and Jack, maybe others. How many others? Suzie? Owen? Tosh? What did it mean? Everyone else was dead, even Jack, from a certain point of view. Was he next?

Jack's tongue stopped what it was doing and his head rested on Ianto's arse. "Stop thinking. Stop worrying. It's a sexy ghost, a rift phenomenon, elves. It's nothing but a joke. There are more important things." This punctuated with hands digging under him to reach around. "And they'll all be there tomorrow morning for us to deal with."

Ianto flipped over and let Jack crawl up his body, eyes dark and mouth set with the determination of the planned distraction. Another day, Ianto would have welcomed it, but something in his mind smelt oily, like the remnants of a drug, burnt like when he inhaled bleach fumes through his nose.

Jack found his mouth, and he tasted like something, something.

END


End file.
